Morning Brief – March 18

Sex, lies and water filtration — Considering contempt — Bev Oda, c’mon down — Kenney gets back to business — Goodyear to unveil help in fight against malaria — NDP sound election alarm, roll out new ads — Charest takes on students and retirees with massive tuition hikes and by stretching retirement age to 70.

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Good Friday morning,

Conservatives spent much of yesterday distancing themselves from Bruce Carson, one of the Harper government’s most trusted insiders until he left the government in 2009. An Aboriginal People’s Television Network investigative report alleges that Carson lobbied members of the Harper government to get contracts for an Ottawa company that sells water filtration equipment to aboriginal communities. Documents show that Carson’s fiancée, a 22-year-old former escort, stood to take in commissions equal to 20 per cent of all sales. Late Wednesday, the PMO announced it has asked the RCMP to investigate, setting campaign teams of all of the parties into overdrive Thursday as they prepare for an election that seems more inevitable with each passing day.

First this morning, the case of two Conservative senators and two former party officials is up in an Ottawa court. It’s expected that a lawyer will appear on behalf of Doug Finley, Irving Gerstein, Michael Donison, and Susan Kehoe, who face charges under Canada’s Election Act. Most likely the brief appearance will yield the next court date. The four Conservatives have been charged with willfully exceeding election spending limits in connection with a series of financial transactions that has been dubbed the in-and-out affair. If found guilty, they face fines or up to a year in jail.

MPs on the Procedures and House Affairs committee continued to hear yesterday from witnesses trying to explain how the Harper cabinet was not in contempt of Parliament for withholding documents that fully reveal the costs of the government’s law-and-order campaign. The committee will meet in camera on Monday to deliberate, but it is hard to imagine that a contempt charge won’t be levied, which would be the first time a Canadian government earns this dubious distinction.

In the meantime, the committee will turn its attention to International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda. Opposition MPs are expected to grill her today over her actions, which the Speaker ruled appeared to have misled Parliament. Oda gave different stories when asked how a funding request was initially approved, but later turned down when the word “not” was added to the approval letter. This, too, could earn a contempt citation, though Speaker Peter Milliken’s ruling in Oda’s case was more equivocal. iPolitics.ca’s Colin Horgan will blog live from the committee meetings again today and report later in the day.

Undaunted by matters on Parliament Hill, the government is planning to cap a dramatic week of announcements and self-congratulatory events with a mixed bag of events across the country. After a week on the defensive over his “very ethnic” election strategy, Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney is in Toronto to address the state of the government’s efforts to crack down on dirty immigration consultants. Former Toronto top cop, Julian Fantino, now the junior minister for Seniors, will be riding shotgun.

In Winnipeg and up the Saguenay in Quebec, the government will announce improvements to Canada’s rail freight transportation system.

In Saskatoon, Science Minister Gary Goodyear will reveal “breakthrough Canadian research that will fight malaria and help save millions of lives in Africa, especially those of women and children.”

Rob Moore, the junior minister for Small Business and Tourism, will be at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., to reopen the Barclay Chemistry Building, which received funding under the government’s Knowledge Infrastructure Program. Later in the day, Moore will announce support for New Brunswick’s dairy farmers.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. That would seem the NDP’s strategy right now. Campaign chair Brad Lavigne issued an urgent call for donations to help fight a campaign that could start within a week. Lavigne wrote: “Stephen Harper has shown no indication that he’s willing to work with others to focus on the priorities of Canadians. And he’s shown no indication he’s considered Jack Layton’s practical solutions to improve health care services and take the pressure off the family budget.”

The NDP also unveiled two new Internet ads that feature Layton superimposed over seniors and the Canadian flag. Layton lays out a shopping list of what he’d do for Canadians — more doctors, improved pensions, a break on home heating. [Click here to view the ads.]